Saturday, August 31, 2013

Starting on Saturday 31st August through to the evening of Monday 2nd Sept
there's a fantastic 50% off sale at Funky Hand. Yes, that's right - EVERYTHING on the website, that is in stock, will be
50% off during that time period.

Friday, August 30, 2013

It's Friday again and that means Daring Cardmakers Day. This time it's Svenja's turn and she says:

"I’d like you to go for some

Heavy Metal

Use
metal in any way, metallic cardstock, metallic paints, tinfoil, wire…
whatever! I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with."

I was a bit of a Last-Minute-Minnie again - the BFoP (Bad Fairy of Procrastination) was responsible, it wasn't my fault.In my defence I was playing with ideas in my head, but just hadn't actuall started making anything. In the end it all came together without too many hiccups and I'm actually quite pleased with the end result for once!I bought a roll of metal foil - I think it might be by Spellbinders, a couple of years ago and haven't used it - mainly because it's such a horrible, brash shade of gold. Anyway I dug it out again and decided to force it into submissionMy lovely DCM Teamie Sharon is now selling SU stuff and I ordered a few punches which arrived on Wednesday so it was only right and proper that one of them got roped in to help with this card.

Flower made, metal panel cut, embossed and inked to a lovely coppery colour, the only real problem was finding the right background. Plain card didn't look right and nor did any of the papers I put behind the metal piece. Then I remembered the pile of background pieces I made a few weeks back for the Paint Effects Challenge. One of them had warm coral and copper shades along with some turquoise ones and if I just pulled them together with some matching turquoise ribbon then all would be good. There's more about how I made this very dimensional background HEREA couple of months ago I was bemoaning the fact that I hadn't updated my collection of embossing folders probably for years. Well, all that has changed rather suddenly with the arrival of my huge and wonderful Design Team starter box of goodies from Crafters Companion! I now have a fab set of 6x6, 8x8 and A4 folders in lots of gorgeous designs. I managed to squeeze 2 onto this card :). Well, if you've got it, flaunt it!

To make the foil panel I first added a layer of ink, then ran it through the machine in the Floral Frenzy embossing folder. Next I cut the shape with the Labels 11 die. I left it in the die while I inked it again (stops me being too heavy-handed and squashing the fancy pattern ), After removing the shape from the die I went around the edges with more ink.There's a great sense of satisfaction when you get to use such a lot of new stash on one project - and even manage to use up a bit of the "bits" pile too. Or maybe that's just me - anyway, I had fun with this and I love the way everything worked out.....which is also a very satisfying feeling. I should quite while I'm ahead, but I have a rather long to-do list so can't just sit on my self-satisfied botty any longer!Do please head over to see the metallic marvels on the Daring Cardmakers Blog - they are sure to inspire!

Thanks for visiting today, I hope you'll take a minute to leave a message ;)

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

I'm not having a great time with photography just now.I sent a batch of samples off to Crafters Companion ahead of a Create and Craft show they are doing soon - only remembering after they went in the postbox that I hadn't taken a single photo of them. This on top of taking photos of something I made and sent at the weekend where, though I did remember to take photos - I didn't check what they were like....and of course the camera settings were all wrong and the photos looked as though they'd been taken in a dark cupboard. At least I could do something about that - even though it's taken ages fiddling about with the tools in Paint Shop Pro.Anyway. Remember the rejected card I made for Friday's daring Cardmakaers challenge? Well, I've pulled it to bits and used some of the little icons to decorate a notebook and make a little gift card to go with it.

Craft Robo to cut all motifs except the tiny bunting which is hand cut

I know the photo is a bit rubbish, but it's a whole lot better than the original version!I quite like the way the notebook turned out so I'm pleased I didn't throw that card straight into the bin. That's all for now. thanks for visiting

Friday, August 23, 2013

Well, just the "Beaches" bit actually, but I just thought of the pun and couldn't resist using it for a titla.It's my turn to set the challenge for The Daring Cardmakers this week

Life's a Beach!I'm hoping that you'll be just as inspired by my challenge - we're staying at the seaside for another week, but this time, instead of working with seaside hues I'd really like your cards to feature some Beach Paraphernalia; deckchairs, parasols, swimwear, flip-flops, buckets and spades, surfboards and sun-cream....the list of possibilities goes on, and on...

Our fabulous design team have really come up trumps this week with a host of wonderful beach-inspired cards to share on our BLOGWe'll soon be celebrating the end of a full seven years of dare-setting and you'd think that by now I'd have learned to have a card mapped out at least in my head BEFORE I announce the challenge, wouldn't you?So once again I struggled with my own challenge - and it wasn't helped as day by day the other girls shared their wonderful creations with the rest of us!The card I finally made didn't look much like the layout in my head - but I'll save that idea and hope to make it work another time. I really wasn't happy with my card but didn't think I had time to do anything else so it would have to do. Then I thought "No, it won't do" and grabbed a few pieces of card, switched the Craft Robo back on and started cutting again. I will share the first card in a minute, but I'm pleased I had another go as I like this card much better, even though it's much simpler and missing some of the elements I spent hours making for the first one!

Materials and Tools:

Scraps of card in various colours

Ric-rac braid, Gel Pen

Craft Robo

It did give me a chance to use some new beach-hut templates I'd been making (you didn't think I'd manage a seaside card without one, did you? haha). The little yacht is a template I made a while back and is oooo cute!This reminds me of some of the pictures and ornaments you can buy in the nicer gift boutiques and RNLI shops in coastal towns and villages. I love all that stuff and the house would be full of even more beach huts and seaside inspired nicnacs if I wasn't reined in!All the little shapes for the flag bunting were hand-cut, but Mr Robo did the rest of the cutting

So, do you want to see my first attempt? I made so many new templates to use on this - making the templates doestake a while, so it probably took most of Wednesday just to do that bit.The LO is nothing like I had in my mind's eye. I think I started from the wrong end by making all the little "icons" - I should have sorted out the placement of the tiles first, then made the pictures to fit.You live and learn, don't you?

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

So. today it's my turn to try and inspire people to get crafty with Funky Hand via our BLOG and I've been playing with left-overs again!

As I've mentioned on here last week it was our wedding anniversary a couple of weeks back and I had a little stack of "I Love You Sew" leftovers from making OH's card I wanted to see if I could use up.

Last time I showed the first of the elephant cards I ended up making, you can see that post HERE, so here's the second;

I thought I'd just show where the actual elephants went before I go - they formed a border for the inside of my card - they were cut out using my Craft Robo, but the same idea would work for the "holes" left after cutting out a punchie shape

That's it for this time, thanks for popping by :) It would be fab if you'd head over and leave a message HERE if you've time

Friday, August 16, 2013

Any sort of card - not necessarily seaside-themed, but making use of those gorgeous sea colours; aqua, blue, green and all the shades in between.I'm having one of those times when actually making anything is like getting blood out of a stone - and here was Gez, offering me the chance to use my favourite colours and still my creativity wasn't stirred. Not good.My one idea was to make a mosaic background and I wanted to use diamond or hexagon shape - but an unexpected extra OH-working-at-home day meant no Craft Robo yesterday and I don't have any dies in the shapes I wanted. Hey ho at least I have the Neties scalloped squares, they'll have to do

The card I used for the background was made with various inks swooshed around with a baby wipe. I made a couple of pieces, one lighter than the other, then sprayed over the lot with some of my new Crafters Companion "Spray and Sparkle " silver shade - I love this stuff - it gives quite a subtle sheen to the card and an extra glint to whatever is underneath = nicer than that dull look you sometimes get when you play with inkI saved some of the lighter card for the upper section, then cut the squares from different parts of the rest, turning the die randomly as I didn't wnat the "stripes" going all the same way.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Well it was our wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago and after I'd made a card to give to Hubby, I was left with a small pile of scraps from the Funky Hand "I Love You Sew" designs I'd printed to use on his card.Although they were small pieces, I still wanted to use them up, so this is the first of a couple of mini cards I managed to make without resorting to printing anything else. This is a 10cms square card, so you'll see that the pieces I've used are quite small

Remember the line from The Feeling's song "Fill My Little World" that goes "All I wanted was some evidence that you really loved me"? Well OH always changes evidence to elephants, so it's become a sort of tradition that there'll usually be an elephant or two somewhere on the cards I make for him, In this case the elephants were on the inside and I cut them on my Craft Robo using Funky Hand image from the Colour Me Happy CD - I've used the elephant shaped hole I was left with to make this card!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The August LO on The Sketch File is called "Splodge Away!" because the main part of the sketch looks a bit like cloud shaped ink splodges. What you use the "spoldges" for is up to you. For my first project using this sketch I made them hot air balloons.The main reason for this was that while I was flicking through my newest paper pads I spotted this lovely design with a couple of balloons in the left hand corner and thought "hmmm two down, three splodges to go!" haha

The other 3 balloons were cut using my Craft Robo. The balloons are slightly curved then adhered with 3D glue. I wove a paper strip through some fairly random slits cut along the
lower edge of the card and added some toning dark brown paper strips and
some yellow and white Baker's Twine.

Friday, August 09, 2013

We've just returned from a little holiday to celebrate our 20th Wedding Anniversary. We had a couple of nights in Hereford, followed by a week in Shropshire. I've wanted to go to Hereford for ages, because that's where the amazing Mappa Mundi is kept. It didn't disappoint - what an amazing thing it is, you could spend weeks looking at it and still find new things you'd not noticed before. It's so interesting to see how Medieval scholars "saw" the world, and how they interpreted the things they'd been told. The fascinating thing from a crafter's point of view are the little drawings of buildings and animals, both real and mythological - today you can find loads of stamps, digital images and other things that look so similar to those drawn hundreds of years ago. If you go to the link, then click on the images to the side of the text you'll see what I mean.In Shropshire we stayed just outside Much Wenlock - hope of the modern Olympic Games - they were doing it here well before de Coubertin cottoned on to the concept - in fact, that's where he got the idea from.Anyway - it's a brilliant place to stay with so much to see and do within about 30 minutes drive - we didn't actually manage to fit everything on our to-do list in to the week. No doubt I'll bore you rigid with photos over the next lottle while :)Now though, I have a question; why is it so hard to get back into crafting when you've had a break?

Zuzana set a lovely challenge for The Daring Cardmakers this week but I still struggled to come up with anything until the last minute - and even then I'm not particularly happy with either of the attempts I made. hey ho.

So, as I was left with some cut and assembled cupcakes I thought I may as well use them up and make something else - in the hope it would turn out better, really, vut I'm not sure it did :(

Tools and Materials

Patterned papers; from "Wishes and Kisses" Funky Hand CD

Plains are all Bazzill card

Glamour Dust glitter, Heart button. Tiny ribbon bow

Tiny bunting is all hand-cut

Craft Robo for cup-cakes

Here's a peek at Zuz's inspiration photo:

So there you go, 2 cards made and neither quite as I saw them in my head. I need to get my mojo back as I have just this morning taken delivery of a giant box of goodies for a new and rather exciting development....I'll spill those beans later, I promise!

That's it for now though. Please head over to the Daring Cardmakers blog where you will find an array of tasty treats from our fab design team.

Friday, August 02, 2013

Our newest DT member Svenja has chosen the August colour palette for us over on the Daring Cardmakers this week. It's a sharp and tangy palette of Lime, Lemon, Orange, Pink Grapefruit and a dash of White - just perfect for summertime! Sorry if you're in a part of the world that's currently in the depths of Winter....Here's my card

Materials and Tools

Direct to paper Inking for the background

Papers: mix of designs from "Glad Rags" and "Barbadian Ecstasy" both from